Selfies: Art in the Age of the Internet

Social media has given new meaning to narcissism. Haven’t you heard, Kim Kardashian is making a selfie book that is a whoping 352 pages!!! How many different ways can you look at yourself over and over again? Morning Joe thinks this is a sign of the apocalypse.

Yes, we do social media for a living and when it comes to business, narcissism hasn’t crept in quite as much as it has for personal (YET). We can agree that our world is now more into themselves than ever before. Why? Well, thanks to social media and its 24/7 abilities – we are never unplugged, and we always have an audience.

Social media has given us unfettered access to an entire world of possibility — our audience, both ever-present and endless, seemingly exists solely to validate our existence as human beings. The LIKEs, Comments, Shares – what do they truly mean?

Given this new reality, we as a people believe that everything we experience, every emotion we feel, every opinion we possess, is worthy of documentation. After all, there is always another soul on the other side of our overshare.

The reason for this post is thanks to Vice.com. They recently posted an article about hanging out in an art museum only to find people taking selfies of – not themselves with the art, but of themselves, ONLY. OK, so you go to an art museum (a visual activity) only to take pictures of yourself. You could have stayed home and looked in a mirror.

So we leave you with this, or actually Vice does – go read this article, but first ask yourself: Does a selfie deserve the same critical eye we give pieces of art? a selfie art, period?

Put down the phone, you don’t need that 100th selfie, go educate yourself!